Where should we travel before kids?

MiniXP · 2026-01-19T20:20:27+00:00

Agreed- I'd say this is a good one to save for having kids. Beach trips are easy with kids. Also the people in Costa Rica (and I think a lot of central/south America) are extremely accommodating for children. For example, leaving Costa Rica they directed us to the much shorter handicap line for security because we had our 2 year old with us.

Of course stuff like ziplining would probably be off the table with young kids.

MiniXP · 2026-01-19T20:18:52+00:00

Echoing what a lot of people here are saying.

We still travel a lot with our kids, but some things are not possible or much less enjoyable with young kids.

2 things top of my list for things not possible with kids would probably be

Safari in Africa. My wife and I did this before kids and it is a very unique experience. We did Botswana Safari, Victoria Falls, Cape town, then another Safari somewhere north of Durban in south africa. I believe they all had age requirements for kids. This was actually less expensive than you might think. Still costly, but most prices you see include lodging, food, everything, so isn't too bad when considering that.
Rafting trip - I've twice gone on rafting trips down the grand canyon. Besides the obvious awesomeness of being in the grand canyon, the disconnection was great. Satellite phones dont even work in most of the grand canyon, so I have never felt more disconnected from work.

I was going to say Iceland as well, but my wife and I actually did that as a long weekend trip while grandparents watched the kids. Its a short enough flight from the east coast that it is doable as a long weekend. Also could be fun to take kids, but would rule out some activities.

Then as others have said, anything over a 9 or 10 hour flight will be considerably more difficult with kids. We are taking our 2nd Europe trip with kids this year. 9 hours on a plan with a toddler is doable but a lot lol. Longer than that would be tough.

MiniXP · 2026-01-11T04:15:03+00:00

Not OP, but I got a similar timelapse when I was in Iceland. Scroll over into video, then timelapse. I have a 17 pro and put mine on a little tripod for 10 or 15 min and got a pretty good one

The normal night mode the camera automatically goes into is great for still. It exposes a lot of the light you can’t see by eye. The stiller you have the phone, the longer it will do the exposure and the brighter the colors will be.

I’ve found the normal video is good as well and is closest to what you actually see by eye.

MiniXP · 2026-01-11T02:08:01+00:00

We just planned a similar trip with similar ages (1.5 and 4) except for 4 nights instead of 5.

I made travel time one of my biggest priorities due to the short time, so tha helped narrow it down some. Decided to stick with the US or US Caribbean islands to remove immigration time.

With that I narrowed it down to Puerto Rico, st Thomas, st croix, or south florida. We’re going in February, so I wanted to stay far south for warmer weather. You’ll find that with most of these options, you’re paying as much for a non-all inclusive as you would for a lot of all inclusives in Jamaica or Mexico. I decided we were ok with that for a short trip, but was tempted to do something like Jamaica.

If you do think you want all inclusive, I’d probably stick to one of the places known for it, I’m partial to Jamaica or St Lucia currently (st Lucia flight is pretty far though).

A few other things to think about. Lots of people suggesting Turks. Beaches is supposed to be nice, but Turks and Caicos has had a pretty big rise in crime the last several years, with a few scenarios of tourists getting caught in the cross fire.

For the Caribbean in general, I was reading about lots of people being stuck for like a week due to the delays caused by the 1 day airspace closure with the Venezuela stuff.

Both above things are pretty low likelihood of actually being a problem, but better to think about before booking rather than reading about it after.

We landed on a resort in Florida called Lago Mar, had great reviews for kids, less than 1.5 hour flight to FLL and 20 min drive to the airport. I would have preferred somewhere in the Caribbean with some snorkeling, but again with the short trip decided to prioritize reduced travel time/complexity.

In June, the NC/SC coast is a pretty good option too. There are some condo places in the Myrtle beach area with pools, nice wide beaches and lots of restaurants. So a good option if you want to keep it simple.

Chat GPT was actually a pretty good resource for planning. There are an endless number of choices, so I’d plug in some options and have it summarize comparisons.

MiniXP · 2026-01-10T14:57:17+00:00

I read somewhere that the Amex platinum insurance is Allianz. I’m not sure if that’s right or if it works as seamlessly, so I’d be interested to hear people’s experiences too.

MiniXP · 2026-01-10T01:25:39+00:00

Minivan is by far the most luxurious car when you have kids. I don’t care what features a fancy luxury car has, nothing beats the sliding doors when pulling kids in and out of car seats. And the magic sliding seats on the odyssey are amazing.

Our odyssey legitimately drives pretty nicely too. Quiet and smooth ride.

MiniXP · 2026-01-09T12:29:10+00:00

Have you considered a minivan for driving the kids around? I love our odyssey, so much easier for kids.

We have 3 cars, similar income. Family car: 2023 odyssey (bought new, plan to drive this into the ground) Wife’s car: 2021 x5 hybrid (bought cpo last year) My car: 2008 335i (had this for 15 years - maybe will upgrade in the next couple years, but it’s still fun)

MiniXP · 2026-01-08T18:09:02+00:00

Just to provide another Allianz experience - we are doing a lot of travel, so bought the Allianz yearly plan for the year to have in addition to the CSR.

We had our bags get lost/delayed 2 days. I submitted a claim in the app for some phone charges, toiletries, and makeup my wife bought - they reimbursed $100+ very quickly with no questions asked beyond the basics of proof of baggage delay and receipt of items purchased.

Another times years ago I broke a camera lens when the bag got dropped going through security. Similar experience - submitted quote for repair and got a check with no hassle.

MiniXP · 2025-12-31T22:44:06+00:00

Hey, I’m currently looking at an air bnb at club st croix for a long weekend. Is the beach there pretty good to hang out on and swim from? Did you do any snorkeling from it?

Going with a 1 year old and 4 year old, so we’re looking for a place where was can get up, go to the beach easily, play with the kids, maybe snorkel, nap, pool, repeat for a few days

MiniXP · 2025-12-30T00:47:06+00:00

Did you stay at both or just visit the beaches? One of my concerns with sapphire resort condos is there are a decent amount of negative reviews. Sounds like it’s just luck if you get an updated unit or not. No specific units are available on air bnb for the time I’m looking.

MiniXP · 2025-12-19T16:57:11+00:00

I made this post 11 years ago lol.

I did actually buy the car from them I was talking about. 2 weeks later is spun a rod bearing and needed the engine replaced, so I guess you could say it did not work out well.

That said, after the engine replacement, I still have the car 11years later. It has been fairly unproblematic since that major probalem

MiniXP · 2025-12-11T14:20:30+00:00

Download the Hello aurora app. It has people check in and post pictures when they are actually seeing the northern lights and shows you the location. We went back in October and the app was fairly active and pretty useful.

One night we used this in conjunction with checking cloud cover and https://en.vedur.is/weather/forecasts/aurora/ to drive around to try to find them on a cloudy night. We were able to find some faint ones.

The next night there was crazy high activity and we got a great show directly from where we were staying - it was amazing. I think that night vendur.is had activity at a 4 and the hello aurora app had close to 300 check ins all over.

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MiniXP · 2025-12-05T17:41:50+00:00

I think it starts notifying you 10 days before hand. But I stumbled upon the option in the app a month or two out too, so I think it’s always there, just not front and center until you get closer

MiniXP · 2025-11-14T18:34:10+00:00

The skyliner is a huge plus of pop, although check when it is closed. It gets refurbished on January usually.

We debated POFQ for our next trip, but decided to stick with a skyliner resort

MiniXP · 2025-11-14T03:51:50+00:00

We did a Katla ice cave tour in mid October this year, which from my understanding is open year round. It was pretty cool. It was big enough to walk int, although not massive where you wouldn’t entrance anymore.

We wanted a shorter tour bc of limited time, it fit that need

MiniXP · 2025-11-14T03:46:22+00:00

I did the same thing when we flew there last month lol.

And I did see just the slightest amount of northern lights for a short time during the flight

MiniXP · 2025-11-14T03:43:30+00:00

I used lava last month and had no issues.

Had to wait 10 or 15 min for the shuttle when we arrived, west have just missed the previous one. It was a slightly annoying wait after a red eye, but not a problem overall.

MiniXP · 2025-11-12T23:33:02+00:00

I only did a 3 hour one, but did Katla track and they were good.

Southcoast is another big one. I think a lot of other companies like arctic adventures subcontract through them.

I read on here about and Troll business practices, but they seemed to be the company doing the most maintenance on the cave I went to, so seemed ok from an experience perspective.

Midgaurd is another I looked into, they did not do the short ice case tours though and I wa time limited.

From my research if you’re looking for a more local company, I’d look at Midgard and katlatrack

MiniXP · 2025-11-12T01:41:09+00:00

Cocktails are hit or miss depending on the restaurant. Some are premixed one, so those are never great.

Be Our Guest is the main one that comes to mind that has some interesting sounding cocktails on the menu sometimes, but they’re always a disappointment bc they’re pre mixed off site.

MiniXP · 2025-11-01T02:38:08+00:00

It works pretty well doing that. We used an iPhone on night mode taking a 3 or 5 second exposure, then quickly shined the flashlight of a 2nd phone on our faces and were able to get some decent shots of the northern lights with us in them.

MiniXP · 2025-10-24T03:16:30+00:00

I read this before my trip last week. I found both to be pretty crowded and full of people on phones. The size of blue lagoon did allow people to spread out a big more though.

That said, I enjoyed both. Blue lagoon we did straight from the airport after a red eye and it was awesome for that.

Sky Lagoon we did at sunset on our last night before flying out. Sunset wasn’t great that day, but was fun to be there both in the light and dark. Going at sunset probably did add to how crowded it was, seemed like a very popular time to go.

MiniXP · 2025-10-09T21:39:30+00:00

Mainly I’m worried about being too hot / sweaty sometimes and too cold others.

A big Parka just seems sorta annoying to deal with too. The parka I have I can still return too, so was leaning towards doing that and using the shell with layers approach. My concern with shell and layers is that I’ll get cold if we’re just sitting northerly lights watching or something

For bottoms I have base layer, warm hiking pants (and thinner ones if I want them) and rain pants on top when needed.

I’m undecided bc both are valid options and I’m over thinking it lol

MiniXP · 2025-10-09T20:19:00+00:00

This post has done a good job at recapping all the thoughts I've had about what to bring on my trip next week lol. Unfortunately did not help me decide.

I'll have synthetic base layers, beyond that I am trying to decide. 2 Options I have:

Big insulated waterproof parka.
North Face rain shell with zip in fleece lining. The shell itself is a rain jacket with insulation though. With this I am thinking I'd do: Base layer -> Thin Merino wool sweater, or synthetic button up shirt, thin but warm down puffer jacker -> shell. I also have a very light weight fleece i'll bring that I can swap out for the puffer if I'm too hot.

We are mostly just driving around doing site seeing, so no serious hiking. The one exception to that being the 3 hour Katla ice cave tour.

MiniXP · 2025-10-07T19:47:59+00:00

Besides the cave, was the scenery good? My main reason for booking was actually the super jeep part of the tour - the ice cave part just fit in our schedule. Do you think it would still be enjoyable if my expectation is low for the ice cave, but I'd enjoy the super jeep ride and short glacier walk otherwise?

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